22 replies to this topic

[Richard Jenkins]

He was one of the last people to see James Dean alive, Cary Grant was like a father to him, he was married to Jill St. John and of course, he was the son of Barbara Hutton. The reputation he seems to get is that of a play-boy, who took driving & entering those Scarabs as a 'lark'.
But is this unfair? Was he like Portago or more like Von Opel?
Did he have some talent or was he a wannabee with the links to the stars? He's always struck me as one of the more "interesting" drivers

By the way where & when did he actually die? Was the plane crash anywhere near a town or was it in the mountains. And whilst every site says the 24th - his family & the SSDI appear to be saying he died on the 25th.
Does anyone have an old newspaper clipping or magazine article that may solve this second little query...

Any stories welcome.

[Buford]

He was married to Jill St. John? I know he at one point was married to my favorite girl from the original Mickey Mouse Club. Annette got all the hype but I always had the hots for Cheryl and at some point so did Lance.

[Ray Bell]

If nothing else, he had a tremendous amount of optimism about his F1 venture. Even when it was plain that rear engined was the way to go, and even in '61 for the Intercontinental racing, he pressed on with a car that was just never going to cut it...

But that car he sent to Australia, that was a little beauty. It may have had horsepower (or torque) on its side, but it looked good, diced with Moss (Daigh driving) and impressed a lot of people...

But probably what it did most of all was put the alloy Buick/Olds V8 before the notice of a lot of people who could later use it...

McLaren, Brabham others saw it perform and within a few years used the same engine to good advantage.

[Ralliart]

Reventlow was married to Jill St. John in the late 50's (perhaps) or early 60's (for sure) and went down in a plane crash over the Colorado rockies in 1972.

[Jim Thurman]

Originally posted by Richie Jenkins
By the way where & when did he actually die? Was the plane crash anywhere near a town or was it in the mountains. And whilst every site says the 24th - his family & the SSDI appear to be saying he died on the 25th.
Does anyone have an old newspaper clipping or magazine article that may solve this second little query...

It might be a few days (or weeks), but let me check to see what Autoweek had.

The plane crash was somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. I have no idea of the nearest town. Seems to me it was a rather remote site.


Jim Thurman

[marion5drsn]

Lance Reventlow : The thing that I liked about him was he had the guts to commission Offenhauser to make an engine for him; it’s too bad that it all came to nothing. Even tho the engine was put in the wrong car it should have been easy to put it in a more modern car and possibly to make it really work. Another one of those, “if onlys” . M.L. Anderson

[Ray Bell]

Maybe they were so busy with the engine they never had time to do anything about the chassis?

BRM did a smart job with theirs though, it's a wonder they never followed suit.

[fines]

Well, I belive the real reason was business acumen: He was losing money big time, and I believe there was (is?) a law in the USofA that allows you to get rid off the debt if you call it quits in a specified time (5 years?). Thus, RAI was dissolved. "Okay, this didn't work, now what do we do next?"

[Rob29]

Originally posted by fines
Well, I belive the real reason was business acumen: He was losing money big time, and I believe there was (is?) a law in the USofA that allows you to get rid off the debt if you call it quits in a specified time (5 years?). Thus, RAI was dissolved. "Okay, this didn't work, now what do we do next?"

I understood it to be a tax law which required any buisiness that lost money for 5 sucessive years to be wound up. This was to stop people running 'hobby farms' with no intention of making a profit.

[marion5drsn]

Lance Reventlow:
So he failed, at least he tried and to his good credit. He at least tried to do something positive with his money. A businessman he obviously was not, he just wasn’t lucky enough to get a good businessman behind himself. I think he deserves to be memorable. M.L. Anderson

[Doug Nye]

Air accident records date the Reventlow crash as having occurred on July 24, 1972: "Lance Reventlow (36), the only son of Woolworth department store heiress Barbara Hutton, was killed in the crash of a single engine Cessna 206 on a mountainside near Aspen, Colorado. The crash was a result of pilot error, high winds, and severe thunderstorms..."

Hmm - doesn't sound like a sensible day to fly on. Story at the time - I seem to recall - was that he'd flown into a box canyon in minimal visibility and then hit the mountainside while trying to turn around to find his way out beneath the cloudbase. Nasty business...

DCN

[Richard Jenkins]

Originally posted by Doug Nye
Air accident records date the Reventlow crash as having occurred on July 24, 1972: "Lance Reventlow (36), the only son of Woolworth department store heiress Barbara Hutton, was killed in the crash of a single engine Cessna 206 on a mountainside near Aspen, Colorado. The crash was a result of pilot error, high winds, and severe thunderstorms..."

Thanks Doug. That sounds pretty conclusive to me. How odd after all these years for another date to spring up from nowhere...

[fines]

Originally posted by Rob29
I understood it to be a tax law which required any buisiness that lost money for 5 sucessive years to be wound up. This was to stop people running 'hobby farms' with no intention of making a profit.

I stand corrected!

[David M. Kane]

It quiet common for pilots with limited experience to crash in the Rockies.
Apparently, you have to be extremely careful or it is quiet easy to get caught out and slammed into the side of a mountain in a heartbeat. We once
flew a twin-engine six seater into Vail. We starting feeling the "trim" coming off the Rockies 114 miles out! The week we were skiing their with
the Laziers, Chip Mead and the Pumpellys there were three fatal accidents
all due to inexperience and flying two close to the mountains so that you
didn't have enough space to recover from a violent cross wind.

The amazing thing is that people don't seem to learn and take the attitude,
"I know what I'm doing, it won't happen to me!"

In America you can lose in a business for five years and write off the loses against you're overall tax bill. You do NOT have to close the business down, you just lose the option to benefit from a tax point of view. The law is MEANT to help businesses to get started and to get over the hump.

[theunions]

Originally posted by David M. Kane
The week we were skiing their with the Laziers, Chip Mead and the Pumpellys there were three fatal accidents

Speaking of which...what were the circumstances of Chip's fatal accident?

I always found it sad that everyone ignored it because it happened the day (week?) after Alan Kulwicki's accident.

[Jim Thurman]

Originally posted by theunions


Speaking of which...what were the circumstances of Chip's fatal accident?

I always found it sad that everyone ignored it because it happened the day (week?) after Alan Kulwicki's accident.

It was sad, but at least I heard about Chip Mead. Poor John Cannon went unnoticed by most for years. Even well known motorsports writers were surprised when they found out about it.

Hopefully David (or someone) can add more, but I know Chip's crash occurred in the Altamont Pass of California. The gap where cool, moist air from the San Francisco Bay meets the hot air from the San Joaquin Valley.

An interesting micro-climate in that area. Ever present winds (there are a large number of wind generating windmills there). Just sitting in the stands at Altamont Speedway late one afternoon provided a unique experience. It wasn't so much wind-blown as the feeling of being inhaled as the air was literally being sucked through the pass from the valley.


Jim Thurman

[Jim Thurman]

Originally posted by Doug Nye
Air accident records date the Reventlow crash as having occurred on July 24, 1972: "Lance Reventlow (36), the only son of Woolworth department store heiress Barbara Hutton, was killed in the crash of a single engine Cessna 206 on a mountainside near Aspen, Colorado. The crash was a result of pilot error, high winds, and severe thunderstorms..."

Hmm - doesn't sound like a sensible day to fly on. Story at the time - I seem to recall - was that he'd flown into a box canyon in minimal visibility and then hit the mountainside while trying to turn around to find his way out beneath the cloudbase. Nasty business...

Thank you for checking that Doug. Yes, that's exactly the story I recall...the one about flying into a box canyon on a day with poor weather.

I remembered that Reventlow had left the Aspen airport. IIRC, the crash site, while remote as far as accessability, was not that far from Aspen. If it wasn't, I doubt accounts will help much as they will all be datelined Aspen.


Jim Thurman

[rdrcr]

Hmmm... interesting thread... It is ironic that I read about the tragic loss of Reventlow as I'm reading it from Aspen, CO.

I frequent Aspen, ASE as it's known to pilots, a least 8 times a year for the past 5 years on GA aircraft and on commercial aircraft since 1980. I've flown in here on GA in all sorts of whether, day and night. On most of those trips, I fly "right seat" and have first hand knowledge of what it takes to safely navigate the treacherous terrain on approach. We fly in on a twin engine aircraft with the added benefit of a FMS on board. Without such a system, some of those approaches would not even be attempted, but on to the point...

The risk is greater because higher altitudes decrease an aircraft's performance, weather conditions deteriorate with little warning, mountains limit pilots' maneuverability during takeoffs and landings, and the rugged terrain decreases the likelihood of conducting a safe emergency landing.

Flying into Sardy Field (ASE), you must descend steeply from about 14,000 feet to the airport, which sits at 7,815 feet above sea level. Planes that are equipped for instrument landings are allowed to fly through cloud cover until they are 2,400 feet above the runway from that point down, the pilot must be able to see the runway.

The descent into Aspen is known as a step-down approach. From 14,000 feet, we descend to 10,400. Then, we must drop down very quickly. During IFR conditions, at that point, we must decide immediately if we can see the runway. If we can see the runway, we'll commit to landing, if not, we'll abort.


If the weather's right at the minimums (visibility), It can pretty thrilling as that determination gets ready to be made.

Pitkin County will only allow GA flights after dark, if the aircraft has special flight instruments and the pilot has completed at least one daylight takeoff or landing at Aspen in the prior 12 months.

I looked up the reventlow crash in the NTSB records and there was this report:


NTSB Identification: DEN73AD003


Event occurred Monday, July 24, 1972 at ASPEN, CO
Aircraft:CESSNA U206, registration: N5290U

FILE DATE LOCATION AIRCRAFT DATA INJURIES FLIGHT PILOT DATA F S M/N PURPOSE
3-1415 72/7/24 NR.ASPEN,COLO CESSNA U206 CR- 1 0 0 NONCOMMERCIAL STUDENT, AGE 27, 39 TOTAL TIME - UNK/NR N5290U PX- 3 0 0 BUSINESS HOURS, UNK/NR IN TYPE, DAMAGE-DESTROYED OT- 0 0 0 NOT INSTRUMENT RATED. DEPARTURE POINT INTENDED DESTINATION ASPEN,COLO UNKNOWN/NOT REPORTED TYPE OF ACCIDENT PHASE OF OPERATION STALL IN FLIGHT: OTHER PROBABLE CAUSE(S) PILOT IN COMMAND - ATTEMPTED OPERATION BEYOND EXPERIENCE/ABILITY LEVEL PILOT IN COMMAND - IMPROPER IN-FLIGHT DECISIONS OR PLANNING MISCELLANEOUS ACTS,CONDITIONS - FLEW INTO BLIND CANYON FACTOR(S) PILOT IN COMMAND - INADEQUATE PREFLIGHT PREPARATION AND/OR PLANNING WEATHER - HIGH DENSITY ALTITUDE TERRAIN - HIGH OBSTRUCTIONS WEATHER BRIEFING - NO RECORD OF BRIEFING RECEIVED WEATHER FORECAST - FORECAST SUBSTANTIALLY CORRECT SKY CONDITION CEILING AT ACCIDENT SITE BROKEN 9000 VISIBILITY AT ACCIDENT SITE PRECIPITATION AT ACCIDENT SITE 5 OR OVER(UNLIMITED) NONE OBSTRUCTIONS TO VISION AT ACCIDENT SITE TEMPERATURE-F NONE 71 WIND DIRECTION-DEGREES WIND VELOCITY-KNOTS 270 14 TYPE OF WEATHER CONDITIONS TYPE OF FLIGHT PLAN VFR NONE REMARKS- RECOVERED SAME DATE. STALLED TRYING TO TURN AROUND IN STEEP CANYON. DENSITY ALT ABOUT 13000 FT.

It appears that the crash wasn't upon approach into ASE, rather after departure. It isn't disclosed who was flying the aircraft, but it wasn't Reventlow. And in IMO, who ever the pilot was, they had limited flying experience as their VFR rating and lack of filing a flight plan shows.

Thunderstorms and associated wind-shear are very common to the area in the summer, and the departure route from ASE is again, a very precise set of maneuvers. If the pilot of the Reventlow plane lost control due to windshear, there is little margin for error.

...hope that NTSB report helps the fact finding effort

[Lotus23]

Got to see the Lance 'n Chuck show one time: IIRC, it was '58 at the Thompson, CT road course. They were of course in the Scarabs, which I still think are among the most beautiful sports cars ever built. Chuck Daigh finished first, Lance a fairly distant second. I don't think anyone else was close. Oddly enough, I can't recall any of their competitors that day.

What ever happened to Chuck?

[Barry Lake]

I have a vague note that Daigh was seriously injured in an Intercontinental race in England in 1961, driving a Scarab. No other news on him.

Can anyone elaborate?

[Vitesse2]

Chuck turns up thoughout this thread:

http://www.atlasf1.c...highlight=Daigh

He's still around - as I posted in that thread, he was reunited with the rear-engined Scarab at the 2001 FoS. Gave it a good shakedown too!

[David M. Kane]

I will call Tom Pumpelly and ask him about Chip's accident since he is a pilot and I am not. I vaguely remember that he might have been in a acrobatics-type plane.

[theunions]

While I was digging up my Lou Brero Sr. articles, I came across this interesting interview in a ladies' "society column" previewing the first Hawaii International Speed Week.

Excerpted from "Who's News with Cobey Black," Honolulu Star-Bulletin, April 19, 1957


Why do you like to race sports cars? I asked Lance.

"Why do you like to write columns?" answered Lance. Friendly, husky, fair-haired. "Because you enjoy it. Racing's a great challenge. It definitely requires skill. The only other sport which requires as much is bullfighting. And the odds are about the same."

...

"Very few people recommend it for your health, however," said Lance. "But I have the theory that if you refrain from all the things that are bad for you or fattening or dangerous, you don't live any longer; it just seems that way. Accidents in racing occur from one thing; making mistakes - except for the freak accidents or mechanical breakdowns.

"Most accidents occur on the corner or in the corner. The secret is knowing when to brake and when to throttle. Sterling Moss, one of the greatest, thinks the longer you can keep the throttle wide open, the faster you'll get there.

"Once you get seriously involved in this sport, it's almost a business."

For you too? I asked the son of Barbara Hutton.

"Yes. I'm not in the top category yet, but some of the good ones have been driving 20 years. You get so you exclude other things from your life and your conversation. Also you see the same faces all the time. I know 20 or 30 of the racers here, and half a dozen of them will show up in Belgium in May.

"It's a glamorous sport, true enough, with plenty of travel, but it's not the sport for speed-crazed youth as many people think. It has the drawback of danger, and the safe driver's the thinking driver, even in sports cars."

How long have you been driving?

"Since I was 16, but you're not allowed to race until you're 21.

"I couldn't wait that long, so at 19 I concocted a phony birth certificate. Of course when I turned 21 this year, the papers publicized that fact and I was banned on the Mainland. I'm the second youngest in this country. The other guy who's younger cheated too."

Shelby and Gene O'Donnell pulled up in Gene's Jaguar. Lance asked me if I'd like to take a spin with him. Delighted. We spun out at 80 per as Lance blew into a turn. "I won't go very fast," he shouted, reassuringly. "An idiot can go fast on an air strip. It's a road surface that separates the men from the boys." Silently thanked my lucky stars we were on an air strip.